I hear you, those reality shows didn't look so bad at first, but they're spreading like the plague! It just goes to show you what kind of viewers those TV stations have... I mean no wonder Futurama was cancelled when the general public is satisfied with watching stuff like Big Brother...

Think those most un-gentle jerkwads running Fox have become as dumb and numb as the shows they keep foisting on the air? Seems so.

I also don't understand this current fixation with 'Reality' shows. After the News, I thought TV was best giving the public some harmless escapism, adventure, and fantasy...

The Rolling Stone article on Matt Groening last year makes it sound like Fox could only get back at his doing whatever he wants on The Simpsons (including bad-mouthing Fox regularly), by pre-empting and cancelling his new baby, Futurama.

Just love the remarks in 'Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV' -- puts this all inperspective for me.

I know we can't do anything about having Futurama revived on Fox....but I still don't understand why they won't allow another channel to air it. I think we should have regular protests in front of the Fox building that says "stop being selfish jerks! Let Futurama Live!"

Fox screwed Futurama in the same way it screwed Family Guy. Both were hilarious shows, and definately funnier than the Simpsons (don't get me wrong, I love the Simpsons) and deserved a better rep than it got. Not to mention the timeslot from hell, often prempted by football or movies. I, for one, am very glad that CN picked it up, even if they are re-runs.

How come I must know,Where obsession needs to go?How come I must know,The dircetion of relieving?

Yeah, it would be good if AS would play the 3rd-5th seasons. I have yet to see them as I just recently began to watch Futurama. (Although I already have both sets of the DVDs and almost everything you can possibly own Futurama-wise)

I'm one of those people that think it was too smart and emotional for the average potato couch. Because, let's face it, the average citizen, whether it's american, canadian, mexican, swiss, brittish or german is not exactly sharp, to say the least. I also believe that the reason futurama got cancelled is like the reason the titanic went down, fox is the iceberg, but there were plenty of other small factors that combined to bring the show down (Like the constant comparison to the simpsons, football, the average stupid viewer, etc).

You know what, I'm trying to convince my Media Studies teacher to give me the go ahead to do an independent study on why Futurama was considered less important than The Simpsons by Fox for my 3000 word essay coursework, and this sorta stuff really helps my case. Danke.

FOX had a major grudge against Matt, when Futurama was created he blocked FOX execs. from having any creative control of the show. Which pretty much meant that they couldnt turn it into a steaming pile of crap that would make them money. Instead the show was a witty, clever comedy that could have made them lots of money, but not the the traditional FOX "TV for people with a negative IQ" way.

I may be going against the trend here, but I don't think futurama was underated. Futurama has a pretty narrow target audiance and as such makes significantly less money for Fox. Globaly Futurama has a significant following because it translates from american better than say the Simpsons (which, literaly deals with the american way of life) but for an american company trying to broadcast to america, it's funds would be better spent elsewhere.

Please don't kill me. I'm not saying I like Fox, but I think their stratergy makes buisness sense.

Futurama had something that niether Simpsons nor hardly any show on Fox had- It had a heart. It wasn't afraid to go beyond just simple comedy, and I'm guessing that was just too much for 'average viewer' to handle. Well, Fox be damned, AS is sure as hell playing it, and I'm sure as hell gonna watch it. Thats one more viewer to prove just how wrong Fox was...

Will you all fuck off. with your superior attitudes. I hate this idea that the show being more emotinal was too much for viewers to handle.every hollywood movie and sitcom has some kind of love story put in, futurama was no diffrent.so if anything i think the emotion may have given it a wider appeal

Yeah, there are a lot of shows that have had similar "heart" in the past. MASH, The Wonder Years, The Simpsons(you heard me), All in the Family, etc. Hell, a lot of them have often done the "heart" thing better then Futurama, or more consistantly. Wonder Years is a good example.

Anyways, Fox fucked the show over, so that's certainly a large part of it, but I don't think its ALL of it. Otherwise, Fox wouldn't have had the chance to cancel it, similar to the way they would love to cancel The Simpsons but can't. I think it also hurt it that it got very stereotypical of itself in season two and didn't really acquire any depth til season three.

Damn you Fox.... Damn you... *Shakes Fist At Stars Above*....... because in the regular joes eyes the intricate quirk that the space spoofage held was just too much for the average fox watcher to handle therefore it gets discarded by those marketing jizz-traps up in foxes headquarters... and besides people see the glory that is Matt Groenings Futurama, as an offspring or spin-off of the holy Simpson heritage..... *tear* those heartless bastards....

Obviously I'm not the only one who's angered. I didn't mean that it had a 'heart' only in that way..I ment that it was different.

But if Fox could come up with a better explaination as to exactly why they cancelled it, I'm sure that would put a lot of restless Futurama mourners to rest. You can't just screw it up the ass and not have a rightful explaination, people.

Feel is the key word there. It sounds like they didn't even look at ratings and based it on someone's own opinion. Yet, it seems how other people can react to strange situations, is more entertaining than the creative genius that is Futurama.

Originally posted by Mimiru:But if Fox could come up with a better explaination as to exactly why they cancelled it, I'm sure that would put a lot of restless Futurama mourners to rest. You can't just screw it up the ass and not have a rightful explaination, people.

I think the reason futurama is underrated is because people are fliping through channels or see a commersial and see a giant talking lobster, a robo, a cyclops, and most likely ther is other wierd stuff in the background, so they assume its a show for younger audiences. Littler kids on the other hand dont understand the jokes and find the show boring.

Futurama did not have a very wide audience that it appealed to. You pretty much have to be a 14-35 year old male to get most of the jokes in the show. If you do not fit into the category you generally don't get the jokes or just find them very stupid. So, why some people may have found the first few episodes funny they didn't find them funny enough to make an effort to find out if and when Futurama was on each week. This is why the show only attracted a relatively small hardcore vieiwing audience. Even if it was put in a consistant 8:30 timeslot I don't think that the show would have obtained a large enough following to keep it alive for more than 5 or 6 seasons.

Another factor was the fact that the show cost a lot of money to produce for the ratings it was getting. $1 million + per episode does not warrant the ~3.5 rating points the show usually got. Especially when a reality show that might cost a few hundred thousand dollars doubled or even tripled Futurama's ratings. From a business point of view it did not make sense for Fox to hold on to Futurama.

Futurama also suffered from the "cartoon boom" of the late '90s. There were just so many prime-time cartoons out there that it was lost in the obscurity.

Finally, Futurama was not "The Simpsons In Space". I think that a lot of viewers (and Fox) were expecting this and when it turned out to be a completely different show many people were turned off.

I think that the first Futurama season far outstripped the first Simpsons. The Simpson only really got going as an incredible show in Season 3 in my opinion where as Futurama was kickass from the beginning.

Futurama always had a select audience and even if it had become a sucess the way the show was currently written it would have not became big. The reason for why it is doing well on Cartoon Network, even David Cohen admitted to this, is because its centeral fnabase/audience watches that channel. And even though it is better compared to its competion, its ratings are no where near great compared to Broadcast standards.

The show ended on a high note, and Season 4 managed to tell all the stories that were needed to be told. If it had become popular we would have more episodes, but I feel that it would come at a cost that the show would become lazy and hence we wouldn't have had as many daring and subtle episodes.

^^^ I think the reason why season 4 tied up many of the plot strands (Fry and Leela's relationship, Leela's origins, how and why Fry was sent into the future etc.) was because the writers knew this was probably going to be the last season. If the show was not being cancelled then they would probably have saved a lot of these ideas for later seasons.

Yes I know. That isn't my point. It wasn't as though they weren't able to finish such stories as why Fry was frozen, or Leela's parents, ect. They managed to do it and IMO gave and told us everything that was needed to be told. My point is, is the fact that FOX cancelled it when it was in the middle of its story telling. An example of this would be like ending it during Season 3.

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